Weekly Global News Wrap Up: BNP Paribas outperforms European peers in the US; Wells Fargo to launch roboadvisor tech by 2017

And will UniCredit and Societe Generale merge soon?

Bloomberg notes that BNP Paribas SA’s U.S. business was the most profitable among European investment banks in the first nine months of the year, according to first-ever filings by the firms required by U.S. regulators. The bank's US units made a pretax profit of $958 million on revenue of $3.87 billion. Read more here.

Wells Fargo & Co is set to announce a partnership with SigFig for clients to use the robo-adviser's technology and wealth management investment tools, according to Reuters. Wells is likely to roll out a pilot version of the service during the first half of 2017. Read more here.

Reuters reports that UniCredit and Societe Generale declined to comment on talk of a possible merger between them after their shares rose on speculation about a tie-up. "Rumors about a possible merger between the French and Italian banks have been doing the rounds for several years and have re-emerged after Jean-Pierre Mustier, a former investment banking boss at SocGen, was appointed earlier this year to run UniCredit," the report said. Read more here.

According to BBC, High Street banks have promised to give more support to those customers who are affected by plans to close local branches. Banks say they are altering guidelines and will inform people more promptly and put better trained staff in place. The UK has lost 1700 bank branches in recent years as customers switch to online banking. Read more here.